SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Despite its name, Division Street Elementary School is all about unity, with 13 international students, a sister school in Germany and an atmosphere of cultural immersion and appreciation.

Division Street is designated the receiving school for Saratoga Springs City School District's kindergarten through fifth-grade English Language Learners. Some of the foreign students in this program come to the United States when their parents move here for work. Other children come from homes where a language other than English is spoken.

Having these students all attend one elementary school is the best use of the district's resources and bolsters a support system for the children.

"If two or more children come to us speaking the same language, they can help each other learn English," Principal Greer Miller said. "Once, we had a kindergartner translating for a first-grader. Having the ELL students here is a fantastic opportunity for all our kids."

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ELL teacher Karin Canjura, who is proficient in Spanish, works with Division Street's youngest children, while Johanna Garrison, proficient in French and Spanish, takes the older set. The teachers have their own ELL classroom and also work with their students in the main classrooms.

In one of the kindergarten rooms, four international students clustered around Canjura to read a book in English.

Six-year-old Bryan Li, whose family moved here from China, joined in the discussion about their upcoming lunchtime.

"I want pizza and chicken for lunch," he said, perhaps still deliberating.

"At home, my family makes me vanilla milk," he said, holding up his arms like a weightlifter. "It makes you strong."

Spoken English is only one aspect of the students' language learning. They also have reading comprehension and writing proficiency to master, as well as the culture of the American public school system. Some children come into the classroom with no educational experience at all. Some kids lack exposure to reading materials and have no literacy in their native tongue.

"I love teaching the students; they also teach you so much," Canjura said. "I like sharing the cultures and seeing the children's progress as they learn."

Seven countries and one U.S. territory are represented in the current Division Street student population: China, France, India, Israel, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Puerto Rico. Many of the international families have come to work for GlobalFoundries. Some work in area restaurants or year-round at Saratoga Race Course.

"When new students come to us, only about half the time do they have their school records," Garrison said. "So, the first thing we do is meet with the family. We get a comprehensive picture of the child."

The school places students in grades according to their age and in ELL classes according to their grade. The ELL teachers incorporate the main classroom subjects and activities into their language lessons and also work with the children in small groups according to their language ability.

"There's a silent period of about six months before the new English learners speak up in class," Canjura said. "These students often talk first in our class before they open up in their main room."

Garrison recalled a boy who was quiet for his whole first year at Division Street while learning English. When he began to speak, his fluency and sense of humor delighted her.

"He could tell jokes in English," she said.

In addition to supporting the foreign learners, Division Street aims to educate the rest of the students about the foreign cultures represented in their school. Miller and her staff have established grade-level projects, library resources, after-school classes and even school decorations that proclaim the school's cultural diversity with pride.

Among the projects are family coats of arms created by the first- and third-graders. Those classes talked with their families about their cultural heritage and returned to the classroom to create cardboard shields depicting flags from their ancestral lands.

Recent art projects included Japanese pop art characters and Henri Matisse paintings. In music, the third-graders studied Chinese music and culture.

The library is stocked with books on foreign countries and diverse languages, as well as a section on American history and culture.

For more learning after school, Division Street has partnered with Lake Avenue Elementary School to offer students French and German classes.

"One of our school parents volunteers to teach Spanish in the classrooms," Miller said. "We also have Skidmore College student volunteers -- students who come from the same countries as our international learners."

Division Street also has started a pen friendship with a German school, Gemeinschaftsgrundschule Kreuztal. The Saratoga Springs children have written letters in English and translated them into German with the help of computer software, and the German students write back in English. The kids also have exchanged pictures of their schools.

Miller, who was an exchange student to Germany as a high-school student and speaks some of the language, reached out via email to several German primary schools before one responded. She said she is pleased with the new program.

"We have a number of opportunities to infuse culture in the curriculum and to teach our students to be global citizens in a global society," Miller said. "We're fortunate to be the receiving school in the district."